I love our local Pizza place (owner is Sicilian), but when we go on the road and arrive too late in a hotel to go out for dinner, sometimes it is convenient to order a pizza. I usually ask the front desk what they recommend, but even that is hit or miss sometimes. So thinking about the pizza chains I see advertised on TV, such as Domino's, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, which one do you recommend?

I don't think I have gone to a Pizza Hut since there was one on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley (25 years ago?).

Sometimes it depends where you are visiting, and where you are from. A recommendation from a hotel employee, with some specifics about why it is good start. Round Table used to be decent on the West Coast but I have had some marginal pies in the last 10 years. I would not turn down most chains if the local restaurant/delivery is rated well.

Used to like Two Boots, but the quality of the food from the closest one declined, and sometimes delivery took forever. So we switched to Pizza Gruppo, which is closer, more consistent, and usually very fast. No idea if there is more than one Gruppo location.

I too used to be a fan of Round Table... but the last few years, they're not as good.
Ironically, Dominoes, locally, used to be repulsive, but the last one I had last year wasn't bad!
My favorite, which does you no good, is Papa Murphy's Take and Bake. Unless your hotel has an oven?

Haven't had a Pizza Hut pizza in a decade (hasn't been one here in 20 years, I think.. I can tell you where it WAS, but not when it closed)... but I recall liking it.

Paul F.
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QuoteThe UnDoug
All of the above! Sure there is okay pizza, and there's great pizza, but I've never not enjoyed a Domino's, a Papa John's, nor a Pizza Hut. Heck, I even like Chuck-E-Cheese pizza!

Preach!

Getting a recommendation from the front desk boffin is a good idea, but I won't lie, I'm a unrepentant pizza ho. Just the sight of that lovely, lovely square cardboard box and I'm doing the happy dance.

another vote for Papa Murphy's. They have specials all the time I get texted to me, and are 4 blocks away.

After delivering for Domino's for 6 years, it is hard for me to crack open my wallet and pay for pizza. I had a never ending supply of free pizza in my fridge for those 6 years. We had quite the party place with my beer bar and endless free pizza.

MOD Pizza just opened a new restaurant in our area...and we like it a lot.

Pizzas come in 3 sizes, Mini, Regular and Double. The Regular runs less than 10 bucks and serves two people. The cool thing is you can customize it as a special order, choosing from like 40 toppings. One price covers it all...no price per extra topping.

It takes minutes to assemble your pizza as you order it, and then it gets cooked in a super hot oven for like 4 minutes. Obviously it's a thin crust, but it's nice to have something that tastes a bit more fresh and doesn't break the bank or require a 40 minute wait.

Many many years ago when i was in college - Dominos waged a Pizza war against Little Caesars on our Campus.

Dominos offered a large Pepperoni pizza DELIVERED to the dorm for $1.99. I think it lasted for a month or two but I ate so many Pepperoni pizzas that to this day I HATE pizza with just pepperoni on it. I end up pitching the slice in the trash after a few bites.

I guess Dominos won the battle but Little Caesars won the war. Detroit's newest stadium is called Little Caesars Arena and will be home of both the Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Pistons.

That said = lately I have been ordering Dominos because one location has 50% off Specialty pizza if you order online or via the App - $16 loaded deep dish for $8

Not a big fan of fast food chain pizza. I can tolerate most pizza but not Pizza Hut. Their pizza seems to be swimming in oil, don;t care for it.

Papa John's is ok but I like a much crispier crust, not the thicker chewy style they do

Dominos is ok but at least in my area they serve a 14" pizza as large which is not large in my book. Several months ago ordered a large pizza from Domino's, first time in years and when I picked it up I looked at it and thought it was a medium pie. I was planning on feeding three people. No way this was enough. The manager in charge was pleasant and apologized and I left with no pizza. I stopped in the next shopping plaza, ordered the same pizza from an owner operated pizza joint and 15 minutes later had a large pizza and it was great. I expect a large to be 16' and got a bonus because this pizza shop makes 18" pizza as large, 14" medium and 12" small.

Of the chains I would have said Pizza Hut once as a favorite. But in the last decade or so it has become too dependent on who was running the franchise locations, and some of the corporate owned outlets are pretty mediocre to worse.

When my sons were living with their mother in Maine there was a local Pizza Hut that was consistently excellent. It was a franchise owned location. On the other hand, one local to me here in MA used to be good in the '80's to early '90s and went to closed for health code and franchise violations by about a dozen years ago. It was supposed to be rebuilt and reopened, but the corporate decision makers appear to have abandoned that.

I have found that pizza from any of the Pizza Huts that are collocated with another of the Yum owned brands is consistently mediocre. Same for their mini-stores within a retail location.

Dominos is better than it was a decade ago, but again it depends a bit too much on the local operator. The one here in town is okay, but I won't buy at all from the one near where I work.

I liked the Papa John's pizza when it was in the area 15+ years ago. But the franchiser for W. MA went out of business all of a sudden, and a bunch of stores closed then. Never found much about what happened, they just disappeared. Some new store have been opened since then, but not near enough for me to check out. So no idea what their quality is like these days.

Rapid Fire Pizza - think Chipotle for Pizza. You walk the line to create your own custom pizza with many more toppings than a conventional pizza parlor - at a flat price. Plus I don't do cheese, so I can get a dusting of goat cheese instead of handfuls of mozzarella. The downside is that they do a 3 minute conveyor cook instead of a traditional oven bake, but the crust is acceptable..

Last October we were in North Conway, NH and decided to eat out (as opposed to in our trailer). All of the restaurants had lines and long waits, so we ended up at a Pizza Hut. They were short-handed, so it took forever, but the pizza wasn't as bad I I had remembered from previous PH visits.

PS: We went up to ride the Conway Scenic RR to Crawford Notch. You can see an album of photos from that trip here:
[www.flickr.com]
Lots of foliage and trains.

That's about it for chains. At home we favor our local take-out shop, Liberty's Famous Pizza, here in Saxonville. Really tasty!

QuoteMr645
Not a big fan of fast food chain pizza. I can tolerate most pizza but not Pizza Hut. Their pizza seems to be swimming in oil, don;t care for it.

Papa John's is ok but I like a much crispier crust, not the thicker chewy style they do

Dominos is ok but at least in my area they serve a 14" pizza as large which is not large in my book. Several months ago ordered a large pizza from Domino's, first time in years and when I picked it up I looked at it and thought it was a medium pie. I was planning on feeding three people. No way this was enough. The manager in charge was pleasant and apologized and I left with no pizza. I stopped in the next shopping plaza, ordered the same pizza from an owner operated pizza joint and 15 minutes later had a large pizza and it was great. I expect a large to be 16' and got a bonus because this pizza shop makes 18" pizza as large, 14" medium and 12" small.

Yeah, Domino's has downsized over the years. In my day working there, it was L 16", M 14" and S 12". Then Deep Dish towards the end was I think @14".

I laugh at what a large is most places. Large should be AT LEAST 16", and Family Size should be 18"+ in my book.

Tomato sauce gives me heartburn, so I don't really eat pizza anymore. You can get it without sauce, but that's half the flavor, so we only do that when my wife is really in the mood for pizza, which is maybe twice a year. We do Papa John's because there's one within walking distance of our house.

I'm with space: what part of chain don't we understand! Having 10 shops in only one state is not quite a chain. Ok, on topic, I too am a pizza junkie, but have had some of the best in NYC, Italy, etc. Maybe Papa John? Some Pizza Huts are good. I've only had Dominoes a few times, can't remember how it is! Hmm, wait while I order a Dominoes pizza...

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Back in the day, Roundtable used to be the only acceptable chain. These days I am lucky that I live in a region where I never again have to choke down a corporate-chain-restaurant pizza (or corporate-chain-restaurant food of any sort). Our local chain (with four outlets total) is Zachary's. Their pizza is fantastic.

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